ECE/CS team wins honors at Purdue's BoilerMake hackathon

2/7/2017 Rebecca Nash, ECE ILLINOIS

The team's first successful run at building a virtual reality game won "Make School's Best Beginner Hack" and "Rockwell Collins' Best Rookie Hack."

Written by Rebecca Nash, ECE ILLINOIS

From left, freshmen Duke Vijitbenjaronk, Jennifer He, Aria Malkani, and Shao Yie.
From left, freshmen Duke Vijitbenjaronk, Jennifer He, Aria Malkani, and Shao Yie.
ECE ILLINOIS freshman Duke Vijitbenjaronk and CS freshmen, Jennifer He, Arshia “Aria” Malkani, and Shao Yie Soh, brought home two prizes at the BoilerMake IV a 35-hour hackathon at Purdue University, including "Make School’s Best Beginner Hack” and “Rockwell Collins’ Best Rookie Hack."

Their application,"Top Hat," is a virtual reality game designed to bring increased awareness to network security as well as gather the greatest amount of relevant data from its users. According to the team's dev site, the program's goal was "acquiring the greatest amount of relevant data possible from its users while providing an experience that is engaging and challenging."

Using an artificial intelligence agent developed by Vijitbenjaronk, the game learns techniques from previous rounds against human players to remain challenging and engaging. The minimalistic approach, from the logo to the design of the user interface and game objects, is inspired by the security industry. The team hopes their project will be a valuable tool while analyzing real-world networks in the future. 


Share this story

This story was published February 7, 2017.